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MarissaTheWriter Wiki:Maintenance
Story pages in need of better/more detailed plot summaries Written by: ASBusinessMagnet Doombly-Marrissa stories that haven't gotten the attention they deserve *''TEEN FORTRESS 2'' *''Invader Zim: Born Again Christian'' *''THE MARRISSA GAMES'' All of these stories don't have four major advantages: *being very short, and therefore easy to read and summarize *being written by me, and of course I remember the plots for my stories down to every last beat *being written when the MTW Wiki existed, which means their plot summaries updated with every chapter and therefore cover every chapter at least to some degree *being ITS MY LIFE!, which is a meme on its own and each chapter of which is memorable in some way Therefore, their plot summaries miss some pretty obvious details that I could pick up on if I were just a little bit more attentive, and some might even skip entire chapters because they appear to not influence the plot that much. However, those are still details/chapters missed, and that needs to be fixed. If anything, the timeline pages of those stories might have better plot summaries, as for those, the goal was to cover every chapter to some degree, and while those might not be exactly ordered by chapters of the story (rather, being ordered chronologically, according to the Marrissa timeline assumed by Enchiridion Marrissa), they might be a good starting point if you're unwilling to read the stories themselves due to their copious typos. Sue Mary stories *Sue Mary fanfic summaries Not only are a lot of Sue Mary stories not covered at all, I also, for the most part, have zero knowledge about the fandoms that they were written for. Oh, and apparently some of them aren't even available anymore, so I will absolutely have to get Doombly in on this. ''Spectators of the Host'' and character arcs in general *''Post-SCrash Session 3: Spectators of the Host'' *''HARRY POTTER AN THE KILL OF SNAPE'' (possibly) rose we dont have fuckin "arcs" we are just human beings :- Dave Strider, Homestuck While the "subdivide plot into arcs based on characters" system looks good on paper (and appears to work with THE KILL OF SNAPE, as the Lettuces are their own thing and don't get involved in the wizards' plot directly), as it stands in Spectators of the Host, it is a complete mess. *If every Marrissa story is a linear experience and will only be read in a certain way (barring the reordering of two intermissions in Spectators of the Host), should we even have arcs at all? *If we do decide to keep arcs, this is what we need to keep in mind: *#The definition of "arc" and what it includes *#*In Spectators of the Host, arcs (other than Cantaloupe's) interact with each other all the time, and therefore it is unclear if an interaction between two characters with arcs should be included in both the arc subsections or only one of them (and if so, which one). *#*If there was some logic as to which event belongs to which arc, it is clearly not applied; as an example, Violet adopting Skepness Man is under Janet's arc, rather than that of either of them. *#*Where do we draw the line between "character deserves an arc" and "character does not deserve an arc"? Does Flashlight Girl deserve her own arc (she does appear in more chapters than Cantaloupe does), or should events concerning her be merged with the Aranna/Cranky/Lately arc? For that matter, that arc is ill-defined; while it could be extended to "all aliens with candy corn horns and gray skin", that would include Meanie and Merlin, who are innocuous doubles of Janet and Dick, who already have their own arc. *#*On the same subject, should an arc really be named after a single character if it involves a group of characters related to them in some way? Violet's arc includes the rest of the Beauregarde family (other than Skepness Man), who (mostly) don't interact with anyone else, so shouldn't it be "the Beauregardes' arc"? (Sidenote: if the "one character in arc name" rule sticks, as Robot and Roslalonde share a character page, they are still going to share an arc as well) *#The application of arcs *#*What order should arcs be given? For stories with only two arcs, like THE KILL OF SNAPE, the answer is obvious: most important/narrating character(s) first, side character(s) with their own plotline(s) last, but for stories like Spectators of the Host, which, at the time of writing, has six arcs, it's less clear. *#*Should any story other than Spectators of the Host and THE KILL OF SNAPE have arcs? (Historical sidenote: THE MARRISSA GAMES was planned to have Marrissa's arc and Wheatly's arc, but I eventually found a way to merge the two; this survives in a last-minute first draft which only has "Marrissa's arc") Family trees Written by: ASBusinessMagnet *Beauregarde family *Jonson family *Lavigne family *Ridgway family *Roberts family *Any page that uses Template:FamilyRelations (possibly) When creating the family pages on the MTW Wiki, my main model was [[w:c:futurepedia:Category:Families|the various family pages on the Back to the Future wiki]]. Unfortunately, the family pages there use ASCII to create their family trees, which render as single lines on the mobile website. In addition, the MTW Wiki family pages have these problems the Back to the Future family pages don't have: *The Back to the Future family pages mostly focus on individuals who have the last name of the family (e.g. the McFly family only includes people with the last name McFly, etc.). Unfortunately, that is not possible for the MTW Wiki, as even something as simple as the passing of the family name from the father to the rest of the family in Marrissa stories is, to say the least, complicated. An obvious alternative would be to draw a single family tree encompassing everyone, and while it was still possible to some extent in 2013 (when the last version of MarrissaTheWriter Family Tree was made), due to copious amounts of time travel and incest, it has become virtually impossible now. With both of those in mind, a line between families has to be drawn somewhere, and it is always going to be an arbitrary one (case in point: the Lavigne family was once considered to be a part of the Jonson family, and likewise, I could theoretically split off the Lately Pirate-Ben Stiller branch of the Roberts family and make it its own Stiller family). *With such a lax definition of "family", another issue that arises is the name of the family page. For example, the "Jonson" family only includes two individuals with the last name Jonson, Gabe and Cave, and the only reasons it is not named the "Roberts" family (as its main character is Marrissa Roberts) are: *# because that is already the name of another family which deserves the name more and *# because "Roberts" is not a real last name, originally being someone's middle name, adapted as someone else's middle name, and then assumed to be a last name. *Another issue that comes with the definition of "family" that the MTW Wiki is inevitably going to use is that some characters inevitably end up in multiple families. This is a problem when an article about the character uses Template:FamilyRelations, as it still needs to pick a family (and therefore a family category) to put the character in, when some characters are in fact characterized by being the bridge between families (e.g. Skepness Man is the child of Business Man (Jonson family) and Skepkitty (Lavigne family), the adoptive child of Violet Beauregarde, the husband of Chell Junor (also Jonson family) and a distant ancestor to the Roberts and Ridgway families, depending on the timeline, all at once, encompassing every single family page created thus far). *On that note, how should alternate timelines be treated? Sometimes, a relation between characters (e.g. Violet, Biff Tannen and their lineage) is only part of an alternate timeline, which means that it should not be mistaken for having happened in the main timeline, but sometimes, an alternate timeline character (e.g. Skepness Man Lettuce) is integral to the main timeline by being related to its characters. (Surprisingly, this is not an issue for Back to the Future; while the main plot of the first movie revolves around a character who wouldn't exist in an alternate timeline, and there are characters who only exist because of time travel, as well as marriages that only happen in an alternate timeline, to my knowledge, there are no characters who only exist in an alternate timeline.) *The MTW Wiki family pages are intended to expand as more relations are established between characters. Unfortunately, that also means the updating of the family tree is due, and sometimes it is too difficult to do so (as it would need major rearranging), meaning those new relations are unceremoniously dumped into the "Other relations" section. *In addition, the "Other relations" section conveys relations like cloning, body sharing and polyamorous marriage, which simply cannot be conveyed in a traditional family tree, and nonstandard relations (as the "ancestor" of a Belorussian alien with candy corn horns and gray skin could be anything, and the actual relation is only revealed when they die and are reborn in the main Marrissaverse). This is also the case for the "Notes" section, which conveys relations such as divorce, progeny without marriage, adoption and distant ancestry, which can be conveyed in a traditional family tree, just not in one drawn with ASCII. *Speaking of cloning, a clone is defined by having the same DNA as the person being cloned, and therefore does not have biological parents. This is not conveyed in Template:FamilyRelations, but as the only clone with a page at the time of writing is Assirram Strebor, who does not have any other relation (and therefore no Template:FamilyRelations, as it is meant for characters with two or more relations), this is not an issue of a high priority. *The family page also talks about the minor family members (i.e. those not deserving of their own page) to some extent. Unfortunately, for the minor characters who are not part of a family, tough luck; this is an issue unrelated to the family trees, and needs its own page (e.g. "Minor MarissaTheWriter cameos") to be addressed. *The family page also includes an "Appearances" section, which, unlike the "Appearances" section for literally anything else, has a rather strange requirement, posed as this: "Note that some family members may have appeared in other stories; this only documents the appearances of the family tree at large." What does that even mean, and where does one say "okay, that's too many members of this family in this fic, it's getting a mention as an appearance"? *Lastly, Template:FamilyRelations is purely my own creation, and does not appear on any other wiki. Those that bother listing a character's family members do so in the infobox, with the format being a bunch of lines reading "Name (relation)" under a "Relations" section (and are pretty lax about what they include, mentioning unrequited romances and pets alongside true family members). For the MTW Wiki, I wanted something more formal, but perhaps I am wrong. Also, my approach still includes relations that do not appear in the model, such as lumping half-siblings and adoptive siblings with full siblings, which produces its own issue: if I want to write that a character has a full sibling A and three half-siblings, B, C and D, I will write that their siblings are "A, B, C, D (...)"... and what do I put in the parentheses? (Fortunately, this has not appeared in an actual page yet, or otherwise I would be using actual names) Current solutions *The family tree template from, of all places, the Angry German Kid Wiki, has been implemented. More stuff Written by: ASBusinessMagnet I reserve the assumption that I am an ignorant twat and therefore have been missing glaring flaws in my own wiki. Feel free to point any of them out. (If you are adding a section to this page, be sure to add it above this one) What does not belong here *Trivial spelling/grammar mistakes/factual errors; you can fix those yourself (and, as per , do not fix a misspelled character's name if Marrissa uses a consistent misspelling) *Non-trivial spelling/grammar mistakes; English has many different dialects and formal styles, and therefore it is for the best if you just ignore what you think is incorrect but what might not actually be incorrect (disclaimer: while this wiki should primarily be written in American English, which I learned throughout my years on the Internet, influences of British English, which I learned at school, might crop up occasionally) *Non-trivial factual errors (i.e. those based on assumptions); those probably belong on the discussion page for the article you're trying to fix and not here, and in general, there should be as few assumptions made about Marrissa as possible (Occam's razor) Writing your own entry When writing your own entry, be sure to put the names of pages you think need improvement at the top of it, in a list, colored red, like this: *Example Page If it is a list of pages in a single category/that use a single template, only list 10 or less of them; for any more, link to the category/template in question, like this: *Any page in Category:Example Category (that colon before "Category" is important, as without it you just end up throwing this page onto the category and not linking to it) *Any page that uses Template:Example Template If you have fixed a page based on the recommendations in this page, cross it out and add your own name, like this: *Example Page (fixed by YourUsername) If you have fixed all the pages of an entry, move it to MarissaTheWriter Wiki:Maintenance/Solved, adding a subsection "Conclusion" that provides the answers to questions brought up in the entry. *